This
NYT article about income inequality is worth reading in full. Here are some key points.
According to the C.I.A.’s own ranking of countries by income inequality, the United States is more unequal a society than either Tunisia or Egypt.
Three factoids underscore that inequality:
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The 400 wealthiest Americans have a greater combined net worth than the bottom 150 million Americans.
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The top 1 percent of Americans possess more wealth than the entire bottom 90 percent.
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In the Bush expansion from 2002 to 2007, 65 percent of economic gains went to the richest 1 percent.
As ...Catherine Rampell noted a few days ago, in 1981,
the average salary in the securities industry in New York City was twice
the average in other private sector jobs. At last count, in 2010, it
was 5.5 times as much. (In case you want to gnash your teeth, the average is now $361,330.)
More broadly, there’s a growing sense that lopsided outcomes are a
result of tycoons’ manipulating the system, lobbying for loopholes and
getting away with murder. Of the 100 highest-paid chief executives in
the United States in 2010, 25 took home more pay than their company paid in federal corporate income taxes, according to the Institute for Policy Studies.
This degree of income inequality is damaging our democracy. What we're seeing is government bought by rich people and corporate "people" and focused on their interests to the detriment of the public good.
